Martelly gone but Tet Kale still in power

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Samuel Maxime

Editor-in-Chief

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (sentinel.ht) – An adviser to former President Michel Martelly made headlines Monday when he appeared at the 2016 National Carnival in a large entourage of police and state security forces although the regime he had served for was no longer in power.

Critics were stunned to find state resources still being put at the disposition of members of the former regime even after the president was forced to step down a day prior on February 7, 2016.

Journalists covering that second day of fat questioned the former presidential adviser, Ronald “Roro” Nelson, about his continued use of state resources to which he declared, “Martelly may not be president but Tet Kale is still in power.”

The February 8 display of a police escort and entourage of state vehicles was an afterthought compared to the legislative coup that had taken place in the weeks prior to sit the 50th Legislature. The Parliament in Haiti is considered unlawful and illegitimate. It was a product of the 2015 elections, the very contests at the center of the national crisis.

Martelly had signed a February 6 accord with the presidents of the 50th Legislature, Senator Jocelerme Privert and Deputy Cholzer Chancy. This accord put a legislature, with a majority of Tet Kale partisans and allies, in charge of electing a new provisional president and government.

Found guilty by a Massachusetts court of assault and battery with a deadly weapon against a former girlfriend, the presence of Nelson in the regime had been chief among the concerns of human rights organizations in the country. Nelson is widely accused of coordinating threats of harm against the administration’s political opponents.